UN-Habitat Oslo

Good morning.

I have the pleasure to welcome you all to this important seminar on decentralisation.

First I have to inform you that my Indian colleague, minister for Housing and Urban poverty alleviation, Ms. Kumari Selja, unfortunately - due to unavoidable reasons - had to cancel her visit to Norway. We got this message late Friday afternoon, and of course we will miss her - I am sure - valuable contribution to this seminar. As we know, this Oslo meeting is a follow up of a meeting in New Delhi last December. It is of great significance, of course, that a country like India, the largest democracy in the world, takes the lead in focusing on the importance of decentralisation. I trust that India and Norway - different as we are of size, population, cultural tradition and location  - can continue to join forces in assisting UN Habitat to implement the Guidelines of Decentralisation and Strengthening of Local Governments.

But I have the great pleasure to welcome you, Mr. Halvdan Skard, President the Norwegian Association of Local Governments.  Mr. Skard and I meet each other quite regularly in our different capacities. To use an UN expression: We are close partners on questions relating to local government in Norway. I am confident that Mr. Skard and I share the same vision that strong and well functioning municipalities are a prerequisite for further development of the welfare state and indeed for a sustainable development of our society. As a consequence of our different roles, though, we may from time to time disagree on the practical implementation. But open debate is crucial in any democracy. That is how we move forward. Mr. Skard, we are looking forward to hear your intervention.

It is one of the basic messages of the Habitat Agenda:  Local authorities will have to play a central role if we are going to succeed to alleviate urban poverty, get rid of slums and create sustainable cities and human settlements. It was therefore a milestone on the long road towards the implementation of the Agenda that UN Habitat Governing Council last year adopted the Guidelines on Decentralisation and Strengthening of Local Government. A group of experts – AGRED – played an important role in drafting the Guidelines. They did an excellent job. Many of them are present here to day, and you are all very welcome. I hope that you, together with other colleagues from most regions of the world, will take on the challenges to assist UN Habitat in implementing the Guidelines in the same positive spirit as you drafted them. 

In our region – in Europe – we have worked inter-governmentally for quite some years now with decentralisation issues not at least through the Council of Europe. By doing so, we have gained quite a lot of experience that, in our view, should be of great value when we now start on a global process. Of course, we should be careful and not make a blueprint of CoE’s way of working - and all the tools they have developed may not necessarily be used directly in other regions of the world. But sharing experiences is almost always valuable as long as lessons learnt are adapted to the circumstances they are going to be used in. I am therefore glad to see that Mr. Giovanni Di Stasi, head of the Centre of Expertise for Local Government Reform in the Council of Europe, is here to share his broad experiences with us. I am sure that he and his colleagues’ participation in the global process will turn out to be of great value.

Of course, also contributions from the Congress of the Council of Europe and UCLG's active participation is valuable, indeed  neccessary.  Representatives from local authorities themselves are likely to be perhaps the driving force behind progress in strengthening the local level of government. They have been very active so fare and I trust that UCLG and other representatives from the local governmental level are ready also now to advise on our way forward. We are glad that we have you all on board at this seminar, and you are welcomed.

Lastly, but not at least, welcome to our co-organizers in UN Habitat. Lars Reuerstwärd,  the Director of the Global Division and he and his colleagues in the secretariat, will be the "hub" in the continued follow up of the Guidelines in the years to come. Mr. Reuterswärd, I ask you to convey my greetings to the Executive Director of UN Habitat, Anna Tibaijuka. I fully understand that she had to stay behind in Nairobi to do her pressing duties there. As she will know from the recent signing of a new two year Programme Agreement between Habitat and Norway, we fully support UN Habitat's important work. I want you to give Ms. Tibaijuka my personal assurance of my continued support in assisting Habitat to work for a better life for the urban poor - the slum dwellers - and towards sustainable cities.

The Guidelines on Decentralisation and Strengthening of Local Government is an important tool to obtain good urban governance, which since the Habitat II conference in 1996 has been considered as an "entry point" to implement the Habitat Agenda. The work on decentralisation is therefore in the core of UN Habitat's mandate. It is also reflected in Habitat’s Medium Term Strategic and Institutional Plan. From the Norwegian side, our aspiration is to strengthen UN Habitat's future work in this field. That is why we have offered to host this seminar and the following two days expert meeting here in Oslo. Hopefully this Oslo event, picking up the momentum form the Delhi meeting, could end up with identifying key elements in the coming work to implement the Guidelines. If we succeed in this, Norway will follow up and consider to increase our support to the work on decentralisation. Hopefully, we will be able to reflect this when negotiating a new two year Programme agreement for 2010- 2011.  For everybody's consideration, may I also flag that we might consider hosting a "review seminar" some time in 2010 or 2011 to take stock of the progress made by then. Most importantly now:  We have to join forces and find ways to convince national governments through out the world that decentralisation of power to the local level and strengthening of local government is important when working for a more just and sustainable world.